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Early modern human dispersal from Africa: genomic evidence for multiple waves of migration

Francesca Tassi, Silvia Ghirotto, Massimo Mezzavilla, Sibelle Torres Vilaça, Lisa De Santi, Guido Barbujani
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/022889
Francesca Tassi
1Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Ferrara, Italy
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Silvia Ghirotto
1Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Ferrara, Italy
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Massimo Mezzavilla
2Institute for Maternal and Child Health-IRCCS “BurloGarofolo” - Trieste, Italy and University of Trieste, Italy
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Sibelle Torres Vilaça
1Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Ferrara, Italy
3Current address: Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany
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Lisa De Santi
1Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Ferrara, Italy
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Guido Barbujani
1Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Ferrara, Italy
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Abstract

Background Anthropological and genetic data agree in indicating the African continent as the main place of origin for modern human. However, it is unclear whether early modern humans left Africa through a single, major process, dispersing simultaneously over Asia and Europe, or in two main waves, first through the Arab peninsula into Southern Asia and Oceania, and later through a Northern route crossing the Levant.

Results Here we show that accurate genomic estimates of the divergence times between European and African populations are more recent than those between Australo-Melanesia and Africa, and incompatible with the effects of a single dispersal. This difference cannot possibly be accounted for by the effects of hybridization with archaic human forms in Australo-Melanesia. Furthermore, in several populations of Asia we found evidence for relatively recent genetic admixture events, which could have obscured the signatures of the earliest processes.

Conclusions We conclude that the hypothesis of a single major human dispersal from Africa appears hardly compatible with the observed historical and geographical patterns of genome diversity, and that Australo-Melanesian populations seem still to retain a genomic signature of a more ancient divergence from Africa

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted July 20, 2015.
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Early modern human dispersal from Africa: genomic evidence for multiple waves of migration
Francesca Tassi, Silvia Ghirotto, Massimo Mezzavilla, Sibelle Torres Vilaça, Lisa De Santi, Guido Barbujani
bioRxiv 022889; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/022889
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Early modern human dispersal from Africa: genomic evidence for multiple waves of migration
Francesca Tassi, Silvia Ghirotto, Massimo Mezzavilla, Sibelle Torres Vilaça, Lisa De Santi, Guido Barbujani
bioRxiv 022889; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/022889

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